TAKING THE LONG WAY AROUND TO GET TO WHERE WE’VE ALWAYS BEEN

The death on September 2nd of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, founder of The Unification Church, has caused me to reflect on the huge impact he had on my life due to my 23-year involvement in his religious organization from 1975-1998.

It’s often the case that in life we take the long way around in order to get to where we already are right now. In my case, I spent 23 years doing everything Moon asked me to do, which was to work hard by sacrificing myself for the sake of others (or in essence being willing to ignore subtle nudges from my soul that were asking me to spend some time getting to know myself) because I believed he was my ticket to winning humanity’s most sought after prize—being loved and accepted by God—or being worthy.

I believed Moon was literally my salvation for earning this. During those years I had no idea all that hard work and sacrifice was not necessary because the God I was looking for did not exist outside me but rather is within me, in fact on the deepest level is who I really am. This means I had no idea that everything I wanted, the reason I was willing to follow him in the first place, was already within me all along.

HISTORY HAS BEEN LIKE A HORSE RACE – IT ENDS WHERE IT BEGINS

Humanity has basically been doing the same thing. It’s a bit like horse racing. The jockey spends years training a horse and eventually rides it as fast as possible around a large track because he believes if he can get to the finish line before all the others in the race he’ll win the first place prize, which somewhere inside he knows will earn him acceptance, love and approval. Just like the jockey goes through years of training with such agenda, we all believe we need to work hard in order to gain such acceptance, love and approval—and it is ultimately an outside God that we are seeking this from. We all want to feel worthy.

In horse racing, the race begins and finishes at the same place so that the jockey takes a long way around to get to where he was in the first place. Humanity has been doing the same thing. We started out as divine beings but while having a human experience we forgot this. We allowed ourselves to get completely caught up into the mind, which caused us to become completely out of touch with our heart or divine soul, but because our soul is who we really are, such alienation caused us great suffering because we no longer felt accepted, loved or approved of—no longer worthy.

This need to be worthy caused us to begin a long search with the goal of somehow finding a way to get back to what amounted to ourselves—a connection with our divine soul, which again on the deepest level is who we really are. All along we could have simply been enjoying life while participating in it just being, without a need for any agendas or goals sought after in an attempt to feel worthy, but without having a connection with our divine soul that wasn’t possible.

Instead, since we had no idea we were looking for ourselves due to our ignorance of our divine nature, we became driven to find that connection outside ourselves. We got caught up into all sorts of distractions—doing all sorts of things as opposed to enjoying the simplicity of being. Then, like horse racing, we accepted the belief that we had to work hard in order to achieve whatever the intent of what our doing was.

There has always been a motivation to earn a prize, whether that meant to win by being better than everyone else, or to at least be assured that we are worthy of the love, acceptance and approval that comes with winning. Usually we have wanted both because we’re taught that without winning we’re not worthy.

In other words, because we were out of touch with ourselves, we began placing our focus on everything outside ourselves in search of what we were already capable of—honoring and accepting ourselves unconditionally without any need to prove we are worthy. While we have been indeed seeking the love, acceptance and approval of others, we have especially been seeking this from a God we have also believed to be outside us. Ultimately then, doing replaced being because we believed in the need to earn our way into heaven. We did not realize that heaven could be found within without any need to be earned. It’s always been there, just a breath away.

SUFFERING IS CAUSED BY ENERGY FEEDING IN SEARCH OF LOVE

Consequently, even though our outside search has earned us a degree of acceptance, love and approval, it has always come through feeding energetically off of others and therefore it has never been permanent. Since it doesn’t come from within, it is never enough so we have to continue feeding on outside sources. We create a new agenda with another goal, and repeat the cycle all over again.

Worse, because we are literally feeding off of others, often without even realizing it, this causes guilt because deep inside we know we don’t need to feed at all. The guilt comes because we are guilty—of stealing energy from others. We may be unconscious of what we’re doing but this continuous search on the outside for acceptance, love and approval through feeding on others is the reason for the perpetuation of suffering on our planet.

Historically, there have been many individuals who have worked very hard to bring change but regardless of all their efforts, it has never been enough to bring about a lasting peace on our planet where all have their basic needs met and even more importantly, no one expects anyone else to be responsible for their life. This is because the focus of their work has always been an attempt to change the externals while being clueless that the real problem was their belief in the existence of victims, which is why they began stealing energy in the first place. They believed they were lacking something and that someone else must have what they don’t have.

Even those who attempt to make change are involved in this energy stealing game because they believe those they seek to help are victims. They feel they’ve been blessed with abundance but believe that for some reason some are a victim of life’s circumstances and this belief causes them to feel guilty for having more, which motivates them to do whatever they can to ease the burdens of those less fortunate.

They think they’re doing noble work and in a way they are—nothing wrong with lending a helping hand, it’s just that when people receive handouts, somewhere inside they also feel guilty because on a soul level they know they’re not being true to themselves. By not taking responsibility for their own life through connecting to their source of abundance on the inside, they are maintaining a false belief in being a victim. The truth is, we all have everything we need available to us within because we are all divine.

Had any of us realized what we were looking for was within, the need to feed energetically could have stopped at our own front door. So, while a certain amount of change has always occurred due to those who have sought social change, the need to feed on the outside world for acceptance, love and approval has always remained within the masses because of the belief in being a victim to life’s circumstances.

NO ONE ELSE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR OWN WELL-BEING

Few of us ever realize that no one else is responsible for our own well-being, nor are we responsible for the well-being of others, so we go right on searching outside ourselves for a solution to how to either change ourselves or bring about change in the outer world. The only solution is to find what we are looking for within, and that’s precisely what is beginning to happen in these times we are living in right now.

We began unaware of our divinity but after taking the long way around many of us are now becoming aware of who we really are and this awareness alone has begun a process of the divine melding with the human. Our soul wants to experience life with us all the time. This is only possible when we are consciously aware of who we are in every moment.

With a deeper level understanding of our true nature it now becomes clear that there has never been a need to do anything with an agenda to gain acceptance, love or approval because all along there was never anyone or anything outside us, including a God, that was capable of giving it to us anyway. We are the divine.

YOU ARE NOT YOUR MIND

It was our mind that convinced us there was a God outside us that needed us to be a certain way if we wanted to be accepted and loved but we are not our mind. There was never any need to run the race. With this new awareness we are now realizing the only reason to choose to act at all is simply to have an experience. There are no victims out there in need of saving. If anything, humanity now wants to be shown how to find the source of energy from within. The guilt caused from continuously feeding off of others is becoming too much to bear even if few know what’s really happening.

When you make a conscious choice to disconnect from any need to seek outside acceptance, love and approval you can begin enjoying life while simply being. This ends the guilt and the constant need to feel worthy. Everything you do is only to have an experience. It doesn’t define you nor do you need it to fulfill you because you’re already fulfilled within. Your soul is your source of energy and there’s an unlimited amount available all the time. This is true for all humans but no one has told us this. This tidbit of information has been withheld from us for far too long.

The mind cannot understand this given the fact that it has been trained by us to always be doing something in search of acceptance, love and approval—and to feel worthy, but that doesn’t matter because again, you are not your mind. You are the soul. The time has come for us to re-consider the way we have been historically approaching life. Everyone wants to find a solution to poverty or end war yet at the same time everyone continuously feeds energetically off of each other. It amounts to shooting ourselves in the foot. But if we connect to the soul we’ll be able to find solutions to all perceived problems.

MY OWN WAY OF TAKING THE LONG WAY AROUND

What I find most interesting is that I’ll soon be returning home from a nearly seven week road trip from Florida to Colorado and back and at various points along the way I found myself speaking about different experiences I’d had while I was caught up into Moon’s dogma, so much so that at one point a friend pointed this out to me. I wondered about this because I hadn’t spent much time dwelling on such memories in recent times.

You see, after 23 years of hard work and sacrifice at the expense of following my heart, in 1998 I made a clear statement that I no longer chose to be part of his movement. That’s when I began a long process of learning how to accept, love and approve of myself. What helped me tremendously with this process was the writing of my memoir, A Grand and Glorious Adventure: The Saboteur Years, which took me six years to finally publish (in 2007). By then Moon’s influence on me felt like something that had occurred in the distant past so I wasn’t speaking much about those experiences. This is because I was beginning to find within myself everything that Moon had once been a source for. I no longer had a need to feed off of him energetically.

That’s why I was surprised when during my road trip I found myself sharing again about those years. Even more interesting was that one week ago I was a guest on the BookGoodiespodcast with host Deborah Carney and Karen Garciawhere I also shared about some of those experiences. After that interview I even dreamed about Moon a few times.

As it turns out, my road trip was a recent experience of my own in taking the long way around to get to where I’ve always been. When I heard the news that Moon had died it occurred to me that re-visiting that period of my life on this trip allowed me to receive clarity on just how far I’ve come in letting go of the need to look outside myself for acceptance, love and approval.

I took this road trip because I felt a need to get my energy flowing. I love my mind because it provides a certain amount of understanding, but because I’m not my mind understanding alone is not enough, not for any of us. After awhile we all want to experiencelife rather than thinking and talking about it. So I chose to literally pack all my worldly belongings in my car and set forth into unknown adventures. This choice allowed me to connect to my soul, the divine within, on a much deeper level than ever before.

In the process I learned much more about myself, about what I do and don’t particularly want and again, I realized just how far I’ve come in this process of learning how to accept and love myself. My love and compassion has expanded. This in turn has deepened my trust in my soul so that I’m now able to choose to live a free lifestyle that I could only give lip service to before taking this trip.

My old identity that so desperately craved love, acceptance and approval is still there but is slowly being released organically without my having made any goal or agenda to change it. Once I made the choice to bond with my soul the process of my soul melding with me began immediately. After that it’s simply been a matter of taking time to breathe and be with me.

RELIGIONS TOLD US GOD NEEDS US TO PROVE WE ARE WORTHY

As stated, at one time Moon was my savior, which means he was my God. He proclaimed that before his death he would be received by the world as the Second Coming of Christ. He and his wife considered themselves to be the first true parents humanity has ever had, which is why the rest of us needed them. I believed because (I thought) he was God and I wasn’t, if I did what he asked the kingdom of heaven was going to be built on this earth, a place he said would be of peace, harmony and love centered on the true love of his ideal family. However, he is now dead and yet that never happened.

Like so many attempts by various religious organizations to convince their followers they need to sacrifice for others, his direction to work hard to build a better planet did not work. Rather than to allow myself to just be, to connect to a peace that passes understanding that is always available within if we would only stop our doing and choose it, I always thought I had to be doing something to serve others in order to be worthy.

With a volunteer spirit, I drove myself ruthlessly, doing all sorts of things for others but rarely was I willing to give myself what I was so intent on giving to them. Such love of Self is discouraged by many religions. Rather, they tell us that acceptance, love and approval from God can only come by proving we are worthy and our search to earn this worthiness permeates every facet of our lives.

THE REAL MOTIVATION FOR ALL DOING IS TO BE ACCEPTED BY GOD

Whether willing to admit it or not, the underlying motivation for all our doing is ultimately to earn the acceptance, love and approval of God. No one wants to be rejected when it comes time to leave the planet and yet all we are doing is running from ourselves because there is no God out there. Again, you are it.

The reason we are not aware of this is because for the most part, religions have always had a need to control the masses in order to achieve whatever their stated agenda was, but such agenda was really just a smokescreen for maintaining power and control, and this is why they have us convinced in the need to serve an outside God—and in needing to feel worthy. That’s not to take away from the sincerity of many devotees of a religion, but the power politics is always there behind the scenes.

Nor am I saying that Moon or any other religious figures have not had some positive effect on the planet. I’m saying their emphasis on improving the outer world at the expense of self is an approach that has run its course because it distracts us from the real source of acceptance, love and approval. In the long run it doesn’t work to achieve its goal to bring peace because outer peace is not possible without inner peace. It’s now time to let go of trying to fix so-called problems while continuing to feed energetically on others. It’s time to take a journey within and find the true source of energy there.

WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN DIVINE BEINGS HAVING A HUMAN EXPERIENCE

We’ve taken the long way around, filled with tons of distractions, which have all been about doing something, anything, to feel better about ourselves in order to feel accepted, loved and approved by an outside God—to feel worthy, and now we are coming full circle back to where we started in the first place. We have always been divine beings but we’ve just been having a human experience. That experience could have always been a joyful one had we realized this. There was never anything we had to do to earn it. We’ve always been worthy. There’s nothing anyone outside us ever gave us that we didn’t always have within us all along.

Now that some of us are remembering our divine nature, we are also realizing there is no need to do anything to achieve lasting peace on our planet other than to be willing to disconnect from energy feeding through placing our focus on experiencing our divinity, which can occur simply through breathing. The potential now exists for the planet to organically shift its focus away from the need for outside love, acceptance and approval. In fact, the consciousness is now aching for this.

Thanks to my recent road trip, I now love and appreciate myself more than ever. I am not the same person who needed Moon for salvation and that feels good. I am that I am—and you are also. Thus, the best thing you could ever possibly do for this world is to take time to go within and return to yourself, making a connection with your divine soul. This will end the need to feed, the guilt that comes from doing that, and the belief in being a victim. Are you ready to make such a shift in your life?